Formby MP Bill Esterson visits Southport & Formby Hospital to he

Formby Labour MP Bill Esterson visited Southport and Formby Hospital to meet the chief executive and other members of the NHS Trust board.

The meeting was also attended by members of the Clinical Commissioning Group and members of Sefton Council.

The MP was told about the plans for the trust and about the impact of some of the changes in the NHS and how they will affect the hospital and community services.Bill said: “Southport and Formby NHS Trust have big plans for services to be based in the community so that people do not have to travel to the hospital as much. This makes a lot of sense and will be welcomed by people in Formby.

"It will be a challenge for the NHS to make such changes at a time when the health service faces a massive re-organisation which is being forced through against the advice of the professionals in the service and against the wishes of the public but the plans for a more community based service are a step in the right direction.

"I have my reservations about the bid for Foundation Trust Status and will discuss those with the chief executive."

Bill said he was concerned about the damage which the Tory-Lib Dem Government was doing to the NHS through cuts and its expensive reorganisation.

Bill said: "The news that 7,000 nurses have left the NHS across the country shows that whatever the government says, the NHS is facing cut backs. It is a big concern for me that such cuts will make it harder for hospitals like Southport and Formby to carry on providing the range of services which people in Formby have come to expect.

"The way the NHS is being reorganised, hospitals will have to compete with each other and a relatively small hospital like this one may find this new environment tough.

"Putting services in the community should help the people of Formby but it is overall government policy which is of greatest concern and which will have the biggest impact on health care and care of our elderly and disabled people.

"There is also only so much which the hospital can do not least when the cuts to local government put more pressure on an at times over stretched NHS.

"Across the country, hospitals are having to care for older people for longer as councils don’t have the money to pay for care at home or in nursing or residential homes. This means that hospitals have to pay for the care and staying in hospital costs the taxpayer far more than supporting someone in their own home or in a residential home.

"The government’s cuts to local government are actually costing the taxpayer more not less because of the cost of elderly people who end up in hospital for longer than is needed."

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